Tzila Hirsch awoke from her reveries and glanced at the old
grandfather's clock which had clanged twelve times. Then,
just to make sure, she looked again at the clock's hands
which left no doubt that it was indeed twelve.

Placing her Tehillim back on the bookshelf, she ambled
into the kitchen in order to stir the contents of the pots on
the stove. Although she was physically in the kitchen, her
heart was elsewhere. It was in three different houses at the
same time, trying to venture what was going on in each.

In only a few minutes, she would hear the familiar footsteps
of her husband, Reb Yerachmiel, on the paved path leading to
the house. He would enter and in his quiet way say "Shalom,"
remove his hat and his suit jacket and sit down at the table.
Then he would ask: "How are the children? Anything new
today?"

Generally after placing a steaming bowl of vegetable soup on
the table, she would reply, "Boruch Hashem. All three of them
called this morning, and everything's fine." This time,
though, she added, "I did what you said, Yerachmiel."

The Hirsch family wasn't ordinary insofar as the
relationships of its immediate members were concerned. It was
extraordinary — the warmth and camaraderie which
existed between them defied description.

Reb Yerachmiel and his wife Tzila were parents who seemed to
have been born only for their children's sake. They had three
sons, all of whom were clever and wise. At the moment of
their respective births, their mother had made a silent pact
with them — one of dedication, love and endless
concern. And they, Refoel, Shimshon and Eliezer returned this
love correspondingly.

Reb Yerachmiel and Tzila invested their lifeblood in their
children's chinuch and the results were apparent. All
of them married fine Jewish girls and raised lovely families,
affording Reb Yerachmiel and Tzila a sach nachas.

All three of the Hirsch sons, along with their families,
would spend every yom tov at Reb Yerachmiel and
Tzila's home. At such times, Tzila, who wasn't a spring
chicken anymore, would rush about her chores, baking,
cooking, cleaning and arranging, while her daughters-in-law
tried to help her.

Whenever anyone suggested that she forego this long-standing
custom, or at least accept more help, she would smilingly
reply, "It's my nachas. I take it easy all year in
order to have enough strength for these days."

Of course for Tzila Hirsch "taking it easy" meant running her
own home perfectly and helping each one of her daughters-in-
law once a week with their cooking and cleaning.

The high point in their family camaraderie was reached at the
Seder night, a night which the Hirsch sons and their families
excitedly anticipated. Then, after the final sections of the
Haggadah had been recited, all would wish their parents a
yasher koach, and say that they hoped to celebrate the
following year's Seder with them too.

On that night, Reb Yerachmiel would sit at the head of the
elegantly set table, like a king, flanked by his sons and
grandchildren on one side, and by his daughters-in-law and
granddaughters on the other side. Tzila, the queen, would sit
directly opposite him, at the other end of the table.

For the grandchildren, the peak of this joyous occasion was
returning the Afikoman to Reb Yerachmiel.

There was only one Afikoman at that Seder and Reb Yerachmiel
would divide the matzo in half, and hide it. Reuvi, Eliezer's
son, who had agile feet (and hands) would take it in the name
of all of his cousins. ("Don't say steal," Reb Yerachmiel
would exhort.) Then he would hide it. After that, the Seder
would continue as usual.

When the time to eat the Afikoman arrived, all the cousins,
from the smallest to the oldest, would line up and state
their terms for returning it. With a broad smile and a
glowing face, Reb Yerachmiel would promise one a set of
mishnayos, another a series of new seforim, and yet
another a Mishnah Berurah.

No toys? No bicycles? In the Hirsch family, the uplifted mood
of the Seder night didn't induce anyone to ask for toys,
cars, puzzles, nor even for albums with pictures of rabbonim.
The unique ambience had such a marked affect on the
participants, that all thought only about sifrei
kodesh.

Of course, Reb Yerachmiel also gave his sons sizable Afikoman
gifts every Pesach.

The year our story begins, a strange turnabout, which
resulted in a rather unexpected outcome, occurred.

*

For a long time, Refoel's wife, Rutty, had felt that her
youngest brother-in-law, Eliezer, wasn't sharing the task of
caring for Reb Yerachmiel and Tzila equally with his
siblings. She unleashed her feelings in a casual conversation
with Shimshon's wife, and when Shimshon confirmed them,
spirits crackled.

In the meantime, Refoel got wind of this situation and joined
the bandwagon.

Shimshon and Refoel discussed the situation over the
telephone, and decided that something had to be done to
correct it. In the meantime, old childhood grudges began to
surface and suddenly everyone recalled that Eliezer, the
youngest brother, had been favored during childhood because
he was particularly weak and sickly.

Don't be mistaken. The Hirsch children weren't deprived as
children. Quite to the contrary, they were showered with
attention and love. But that's how resentment works. First it
raises past memories and then it interprets them according to
the current situation.

That year, when Refoel and Shimshon learned that Eliezer
would be given the room they regarded as the choice one,
their feelings were "confirmed." That year, the Afikoman was
taken and hidden as usual. The grandchildren stated their
conditions for returning it, and Reb Yerachmiel agreed.
However, when Reuvi returned to the room white as a sheet,
and cried out: "I can't find it," a commotion erupted.

Immediately, Refoel, Shimshon and Eliezer jumped up and began
to search the rooms. Poor Reuvi began to stammer that he had
placed it on the dresser in the main bedroom, and that it
simply wasn't there. The dresser was moved, the beds pulled
aside, but the matzo was still nowhere in sight.

"Well, if there is no Afikoman, there are no gifts," Reb
Yerachmiel flatly declared.

But that didn't help, because it simply couldn't be found.

Without an Afikoman, the children began to search for the
culprit, and Reuvi quickly became the butt of all the attacks
and charges. Biting remarks were hurled at him, while his
brothers, who tried to protect him, were soon were accused of
being his accomplices.

Reb Yerachmiel's sons didn't rest on their laurels and they
also tried to find the culprits, or better yet, to exploit
the situation for settling age-old accounts (of course not as
vociferously as the children).

The clock moved ahead with giant steps, and chatzos
finally arrived. Reb Yerachmiel called everyone to the table,
and with a trembling hand, removed a whole matzo from his own
matzo box. Then he divided it into pieces and said, "This
will be our Afikoman."

The matzo still between his teeth, Refoel's son Moishe hissed
to Reuvi: "You're to blame. Why didn't you tell us where you
hid the Afikoman?"

Reuvi crinkled his nose. He knew that it wasn't the time for
settling accounts, and that Saba Yerachmiel wouldn't let a
mundane word be uttered at his Seder table.

However, the moment the family finished reading the Haggadah,
a brawl erupted in the next room, as cousins shot arrows at
Reuvi and Reuvi fought back.

The older cousins who tried to calm the younger ones were
unwillingly drawn into the brawl, and the missing Afikoman
became the basis for the unpleasant mood which pervaded the
Hirsch home the following day.

Instead of playing together, each one of the cousins huddled
under his blankets or in his corner. Tense silence loomed
overhead and, as in all childish fights, the bickering did
not end with words, but soon became a skirmish. A fist fight
broke out in the afternoon — one cousin claiming, the
other countering him. At that point, Refoel, the oldest
Hirsch son, tapped one of Eliezer's children on the shoulder,
ever so lightly, and tried to remove him from the room.

We don't know how Eliezer, and most of all his wife, reacted
to that gesture (and even if we did know, we have forgotten).
But this we know quite well: that evening, the Hirsch sons
left their parents' home in very grumpy moods. Each one of
them, of course smiled broadly when he said good-bye to Rav
Yerachmiel and Tzila and warmly thanked them for the large
boxes, filled with baked goods and kugels, which had been
shoved into their hands. But that was it. From then on, the
good-fellowship which had existed between the various
branches of the Hirsch family was gone.

That year, they didn't pay each other their customary chol
hamoed visits, and everyone, accept for Shimshon, avoided
the family gathering at Reb Yerachmiel and Tzila's home on
the last day of Pesach. Although the cousins came the
following day to help Tzila put the dishes away, Reb
Yerachmiel could see that the fire was spreading and wreaking
havoc on his beloved family.

From that day on, the relationships between the Hirsch
brothers and their respective families steadily worsened. Of
course, the Hirsch children were still very close with their
parents and would call them a few times a day, and even pop
over for visits once or twice a week. Shimshon continued to
study bechavrusa with his father, while Tzila still
visited her sons and her daughters-in-law, although she
didn't involve herself in the painful fight.

*

Days continued to flow by. However beneath the surface, the
waters raged.

At first, Yerachmiel had hoped that life in his home would
resume its regular course. However, he quickly discovered
that his sons diplomatically refused Tzila's invitations for
them come for pan-family Shabbosim. When Reb Yerachmiel asked
why they no longer felt comfortable together, he would
receive answers such as: the family has grown; the children
are older; Shuki was sick all week... Quite soon, fancied
childhood grudges became steady topics of conversation in the
various Hirsch homes during supper, after the children had
gone to sleep.

Good chinuch was the trademark of the Hirsch sons, and
they were very careful not to utter even one derogatory
remark about their siblings or nieces and nephews in the
presence of their children. However what they and their wives
didn't realize was that atmosphere cannot be controlled, and
that poison injected into a home's air necessarily harms its
occupants.

When the kindergarten rebbe told Refoel: "Your Itzik fights a
lot with his cousin in class," Refoel, casually replied,
"That's the way kids are. It'll pass soon." How could a
kindergarten child know that earlier that morning, his father
had crossed the street in order to avoid meeting Eliezer face
to face? If Refoel recalled correctly, he was the only one
present at that disgraceful scene. What had that to do with
fights between cousins in kindergarten?

And...at a recent PTA meeting, the teacher had told Eliezer's
wife: "Your daughter, Yocheved seems tense." However, she
claimed that she didn't know why. A mosquito which pecked
away at her mind tried to link the teacher's comment to the
family feud. Whisking it away, Eliezer's wife seemed to be
saying, "Hey little mosquito, don't you know that the
children don't hear what we say, and have no idea that
something's brewing. So what if this morning, five year old
Motti asked, for the tenth time, why we haven't visited uncle
Shimshon for a number of months, and haven't seen their newly
born cousin." Deep down, she prayed that Motti wouldn't ask
what the baby was called. She simply didn't know.

And oy, poor Reb Yerachmiel. At first he had simply
hoped that the longed-for peace would soon return. When he
saw that no one was seeking it, he tried to enable it in
various ways, but with no success. However, when Rav Adler,
the mashgiach in the Maayan HaTorah yeshiva, reported that
the study-partnership between the two Hirsch cousins had
dissolved, and that the friendship between the two had
dwindled, a light turned on in Reb Yerachmiel's mind, and his
heart sank.

He didn't hear Rav Adler say that the two cousins were still
among the yeshiva's best students, and that the split had
apparently been caused by the laxity common at the end of the
zman.

In general, encounters with Rav Adler had been boosters which
had sustained him for many months, during which he would
repeat the mashgiach's compliments to Tzila over and over
again, as their tears of happiness mingled with the vapors of
the piping cups of tea before them.

But this time, the tears were salty and burning.

As if that weren't enough, that evening Tzila popped the
$24,000 question: "What will be at the Seder this year?"

The recollection of the past Seder was still fresh in their
minds and set their teeth on edge.

Rav Yerachmiel knew that his sons would give excuses to
celebrate the Seder alone that year with their respective
families. However, he was determined not to let that happen.
On that night, all would sit together in his home, and
celebrate the Seder together.

How would that be accomplished? Reb Yerachmiel trusted that
Hashem would present him with a solution, especially since
Tzila had finished the entire Tehillim that week a few
times, pleading with the Ribono Shel Olam to alleviate
the sorrow which had beset their home.

*

That day, when Reb Yerachmiel returned home and heard that
Tzila had fulfilled his request, he felt that the first step
on the way to the fulfillment of their hopes had been taken,
and that headway soon would be made.

On the night of bedikas chometz, Rav Yerachmiel
examined every nook and cranny of the house by the light of a
wax candle. The house was pitch dark, but they anticipated
the great light which would shine there the following day.
Jars of cherein already graced the counter, and the
cherein had come out just as Rutty liked it —
sharp and tangy. "I'll make the apple kugel in the morning,
because Shimshon likes it freshly baked. There will be a
Seder here tomorrow, a lovely Seder," Tzila confidently told
herself. But then her thoughts led her to the Afikoman.

The chometz had already been burned, and the odor of
the smoke had passed with the wind. The table was royally
set. But Yerachmiel and Tzila paced the house like caged
lions. They had no more patience or strength to wait.

They knew that their children would come late. They
themselves had asked them to do so, claiming that it was hard
for Tzila to function with the children underfoot.
Nonetheless...

Eliezer arrived first. With a broad smile and a warm laugh,
he greeted his parents and tasted some of Tzila's delicacies.
Then he went to the inner rooms to unpack his suitcase.

Shimshon arrived a few moments later.

"What? You're here too? How nice." Shimshon's wife called out
to Eliezer's wife. "Ima said that we would be here alone this
year."

When Refoel came with his family, the picture became clear.
Each one had been invited, like a ben yochid, to this
triple-fold rendezvous.

Rav Yerachmiel filled the vacuum of silence by sending his
sons to the rooms allocated for them, and urging them to
prepare for the yom tov. The small children who were
playing together in the living room proved that the second
step had been taken, and with a right foot. Now the most
important hurdle had to be conquered: the Afikoman.

Every detail of that day had been carefully planned. Tzila
called Shimshon and Refoel into the kitchen to help her
arrange the food on the Shabbos blech, and Shimshon's
daughter Rivki and her cousin, Eliezer's daughter Ruchie,
were asked to dish out the nuts.

The ice still hadn't been totally broken, and but the tension
and the stifling feelings which had lingered in the house in
the afternoon had begun to melt.

"Kadesh," Reb Yerachmiel called out in his warm voice,
as he glanced at his dear ones.

All were there. No one was missing.

When they reached Yachatz, all squirmed uncomfortably.
The recollection of the past year's Afikoman hit them full
force. Rav Yerachmiel took the matzo, broke it in half,
wrapped the large part, and declared: "This year, I am taking
the Afikoman. This year, all of you will give me and Savta a
gift."

"And what a gift," Tzila silently added.

When they reached Shulchan Oreich, the tension
mounted. All eagerly awaited to hear what Reb Yerachmiel
would say when they reached Tzofun. They knew wouldn't
emerge from that Seder blamelessly, and even the small
children sensed the imminent drama.

Rav Yerachmiel sat in his place deep in thought. Suddenly, he
rose, and pounding on the table, announced,
"Tzofun."

His face sunk within his white beard, and took on the hue of
his kittel. Refoel jumped up, and wanted to get him
some water. But when Reb Yerachmiel began to speak in a
confident tone, Refoel calmed down.

"My dearest grandchildren," Reb Yerachmiel began against the
backdrop of Tzila's quiet weeping. "Exactly a year ago, when
I called out Tzofun, all of you came forward and
stated your demands for the Afikoman. After you received
positive answers, you wanted to return the Afikoman. But it
had disappeared, as if swallowed by the earth."

Shimshon leaned back on his pillow, and felt that he couldn't
bear the tension any longer. Refoel twisted about
uncomfortably, while the women lowered their eyes.

"You searched and searched," Reb Yerachmiel continued, "and
didn't find it. But how could you have found it, when I had
put in my matzo box, right beside me? Yes, I removed
the Afikoman from the dresser."

Even the smaller children knew that the question "why" wasn't
appropriate at that moment, and that the rest of the story
would be surprising and even a bit bemusing.

"During the weeks before Pesach of last year, Ima and I felt
that an ugly wave was threatening to drown our generally warm
family relationships. Of course, you continued to respect me
and Ima. But we felt that certain resentments were festering
among you, and we sensed the petty envy and ill-will. How did
we feel this? Don't ask: a mother's heart, a father's
eyes.

"At first we thought we were imagining things. But when you
came for yom tov, I knew that we hadn't been
mistaken.. Yet I had hoped that it was something minor and
passing."

No one dared to glance at the clock, as if not wishing to
recall chatzos of that previous year.

"What worried me most was that the animosity might very
shortly seep into the hearts of the children, and ruin their
warm, mutual relationships. Then and there, I decided to take
action. And so, I took the Afikoman myself, hoping that when
the loss was discovered, a fight would develop between the
children, and that they would demand that the culprit be
reprimanded.

"I hoped that you, my dear sons, would find a way to
extinguish the fire and to explain to your small children
that losing an Afikoman isn't the end of the world, and that
peace and unity are far more important. I assumed that I
would get up and announce that I had taken the Afikoman in
order to test you, and that you would prove that
sholom was more important to you than the loss of the
Afikoman.

"But I was disappointed — sorely so. While the children
fought over who was to blame you, the parents, engaged in
similar, even sharper arguments. Although they were subtle,
they were caustic. When I heard remarks like: `Just look at
that grin on Eliezer's face. If it wasn't his son, I don't
know what would happen here,' or `Why is Eliezer so calm?
Doesn't he realize that he's responsible for his son's
behavior?'

"Then I knew that I had overestimated you, my dear children.
At that moment, I decided that I would distribute the
Afikoman, without your knowing that it was the supposedly
missing matzo. I still hoped that during the yom tov
all of you would come to your senses, and that I would be
able to reveal the secret. But as you know, that didn't
happen.

"A year has passed, a very unhappy and difficult one for all
of us. But here we are again — chatzos on Leil
Haseder, and it's time to eat the Afikoman.

"Now I will say what I had so hoped you would say: Sholom
is our most precious asset. No loss or lack can lessen
its value, nor should any loss undermine it. It must prevail
under all circumstances."

At that point, Yerachmiel removed one matzo from his personal
matzo box, broke it into pieces, and placed them in separate
plastic bags.

All looked at him in astonishment, but he ignored their
looks.

"Each one will soon receive a bag, and I bid each and every
one of you to keep your bag in your coat pocket the entire
year. Next erev Pesach, burn these bags at sreifas
chometz and, on Leil Haseder, replace them with new
plastic bags which contain pieces of Afikoman. This matzo
shemurah — guarded matzo — will remind you of
the resentment you guarded in your hearts, and which on this
night you eliminated and burned. This matzo shemurah
will remind you that there is no greater blessing in the
world than sholom.

Then, with trembling hands, Reb Yerachmiel distributed the
bags to all the members of his family.